The image Microsoft doesn't want you to see: Too tired to stay awake

[SoCalDem]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html

By Liz Hull and Lee Sorrell
Last updated at 12:29 AM on 18th April 2010


Worn out: Some of the workers making computer accessories for Microsoft at a Chinese factory

Showing Chinese sweatshop workers slumped over their desks with exhaustion, it is an image that Microsoft won't want the world to see.

Microsoft at a Chinese factory

This photo and others like it were smuggled out of the KYE Systems factory at Dongguan, China, as part of a three-year investigation by the National Labour Committee, a human rights organisation which campaigns for workers across the globe.

The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room. They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.

The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they are young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC claimed.

The organisation said that one worker was even fined for losing his finger while operating a hole punch press. Microsoft is not the only company to outsource manufacturing to KYE, but it accounts for about 30 per cent of the factory's work, the NLC said. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech and Asus also use KYE Systems.

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One employee told the NLC: 'We are like prisoners. It seems like we live only to work - we do not work to live. We do not live a life, only work.'

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It was the militaristic management and sleep deprivation that affected the worker most. 'I know I can choose not to work overtime, but if I don't work overtime then I am stuck with only 770 Chinese yuan (£72.77p) per month in basic wages,' the worker said. 'This is not nearly enough to support a family. My parents are farmers without jobs. They also do not have pensions.

snip

Microsoft said it was committed to the 'fair treatment and safety of workers'. A spokesman added: 'We are aware of the NLC report and we have commenced an investigation.

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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html#ixzz0ljM06mkY

[CTLawGuy]

1. Hooray for "free" trade

:sarcasm:

This is corporate feudalism essentially. These workers are serfs, they live at work and they get all their meals from work.

[Delphinus]

2. I had no idea.

I really thought things had gotten better for the employed overseas. Guess I was wrong.

Thanks for sharing.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Sleeping on the job? Dock their pay!

Race to the bottom.

[Selatius]

4. At the end of the day, Microsoft won't leave China. The wages are too low. The profits are big.

Sure, KYE may lose its contract with Microsoft due to publicity, but at the end of the day, the company will find a new contractor that will probably do the same thing, until another investigation unearths more sweatshop abuses, and we will go around in circles again, but we will never get off the wheel.

The margins are too big. They will never bring back the jobs to the US as long as American workers have to compete with foreign workers being paid 60 cents per hour.

[HughBeaumont]

10. At the end of the day, we need to have a new Independence Day.

Way too much money hoarding at the top of the food chain, way too much dilapidation at the bottom and not enough time, money or leeway for the middle/working/poor to even begin to catch up.

Our King Georges are now Larry Elison, Lee Raymond, Bill Gates and Jack Welch. Yap yap all day about Gates' charity; the guy is rich and monopolistic enough not to act like the ChinaMart family and plunge wages to the abyss.

[corpseratemedia]

5. Oh look at all the good Microsoft is doing!

Free trade has been such a boon to workers...and um, farmers..and the environment.

Now I really will trust bill and melinda with privatizing our education and ensuring viable teacher's wages!:sarcasm: in case you really need it

[thereismore]

6. They are just lazy! Or the union got them an hour-long nap. Damn unions. nt

[Naturyl]

7. Guys, capitalism is based on slavery.

Until people really face this fact, squarely and honestly, slavery in all its forms will not go away.

[Xenotime]

19. Agreed. That's why it must be stopped.

[lunatica]

8. That could easily happen here

Get enough people into the poverty class and you've got yourself factory workers who will take that kind of abuse just to be able to eat.

Corporatocracy's dream. Use as close to slave labor as possible and sell to the developing countries. They can make profits for years, or even decades before they run out of consumers.

[FiveGoodMen]

24. Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" documents the fact that it already HAS happened here

And yes, we are definitely heading back to that unless more Americans wake up.

[Blue_Tires]

31. +1

[Brickbat]

9. But look! It's nice and clean there! And the company provides nap tables for them!

It doesn't have to be dark and dirty for it to be a sweatshop. But if it says "Made in China," you can be pretty sure that the above picture is the BEST condition your product might have been made under.

Take a minute and read the label of everything you use or buy today, and imagine the factory or plant or field it might have been made or grown in. Every single thing. Someone who's working 15 hours a day or putting up with forced abortion to keep a job or is 12 years old helped make it. It's that simple. Put your hand on it and think of that person, and ask yourself if it's worth it.

Yes, God forbid we make stuff in this country, where we have laws against such things. It might add $150 to the cost of a $1,500 computer, and no one would possibly put up with those prices. It might add $7 to the cost of an $80 pair of shoes, and that would totally break the shoe industry. It might possibly make a $7 toy cost $9, and what would children do then?

Read the label. Buy union, buy American.

[customerserviceguy]

11. Not that I'm happy with outsourcing everything to China

but it is possible that what is pictured is some sort of "nap break" that almost everyone participates in? I worked for a Taiwanese company in a plant in the US, and we had our pre-work stretching excercise activity. It might just be a cultural phenomenon being depicted here.

[HughMoran]

13. Yes, it is almost certainly a break

They do not generally leave their workstations for break - usually they will do exactly what you see in the photograph. So, everything they have said is true about the awful conditions that the workers face, but the picture not be what they suggest.

[TwilightGardener]

23. When I worked night shift, we were allowed to take naps instead of lunch.

That said, there's no excusing such long hours and poor treatment.

[HughMoran]

12. Yes, all of that is true

...my previous scumbag company did many of these same things - some in management think it's funny and make fun of the subservient Chinese workers.

The picture in the O/P looks like break time however - they generally don't leave their workstations during breaks and thus rest their heads during the allotted time.

[DainBramaged]

14. And NO ONE here will do a thing except bash Microsoft and cluck their tongues

and the INSTANT you need a mouse, that hand will be reaching for a Microsoft, Logitech or HP because unfortunately there are no other choices. And if you own a Mac, do you think for one second the conditions are any different at their factories?


America, in love with cheap Chinese junk at the expense of human rights.

[DainBramaged]

15. Labor issues in China continue to plague Apple and others

new investigation into Chinese labor law disputes reveals that Apple still isn't immune to associations with manufacturing partners that aren't in compliance with laws designed to improve labor conditions for Chinese workers. Despite instigating a comprehensive auditing process after it was revealed that Foxconn—assembler of iPods—had serious problems with worker conditions, Apple's own investigations reveal that over half of the factories it audited last year didn't pay overtime, and a quarter paid less than mandated minimum wages. The widespread problems affect other companies as well, but also threaten to sully Apple's otherwise squeaky clean corporate image.

A recent comparison of prices of electronics in 1979 to prices we pay today noted that "increased competition and better manufacturing technologies have made the gadgets we buy today seem like extreme bargains when put in a historical context." For instance, a 48K Apple II in 1979 cost $2,638—or about $7,700 when adjusted for inflation. For that kind of bank, you can pick up a well-spec'd Mac Pro and a couple 30" Cinema Displays. While increased competition and better manufacturing can certainly account for some of the difference, it's worth noting that Apple—like most electronics manufacturers—have since moved most or all manufacturing to developing Asian countries, and China in particular.

China has never had a particularly good reputation for worker conditions. To improve the situation, a new national labor law went into effect in China on January 1, 2008 that was designed to limit work hours, ensure paid overtime, and guarantee severance pay. Despite that, many workers say the law isn't being enforced. "The government may have regulations that require employers to pay, but it may not be able to police every employer," according to 21-year-old Dong Zhanli, who worked 16-hours days assembling DVD players—even on weekends—for the equivalent of $175 a month.

"The government kept saying they are going to be strong on the contract law, Dominique Muller, executive director of IHLO, the Hong Kong Liaison Office for international trade unions, told Bloomberg. "In reality, they are turning a blind eye."

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/07/labor-issues-in-china-continue-to-plague-apple-and-others.ars July 15, 2009

[Uzybone]

27. +1000000

typical american liberals. Tsking tsking while enabling the very things we whine about.

[Gecko6400]

16. Where is the Chinese government in all this mistreatment of its citizens??

[Romulox]

17. But Bill Clinton told us that DEMOCRACY would flourish in China, if only we export our jobs there...

:rofl:

[MineralMan]

18. The words the OP doesn't want you to see...

From the article:

"Showing Chinese sweatshop workers slumped over their desks with exhaustion, it is an image that Microsoft won't want the world to see.
Employed for gruelling 15-hour shifts, in appalling conditions and 86f heat, many fall asleep on their stations during their meagre ten-minute breaks."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html#ixzz0lk7kWzEd

The work conditions are bad, but these people are on a break. They didn't just slump over in the middle of work. Why was that left out of the quote?

[Romulox]

21. LOL. It's OK folks--these folks were on their 10 minute BREAK from their 15 hour shift.

Your addendum doesn't make things any better, I'm afraid. :eyes:

[SoCalDem]

30. "...fall asleep on their stations during their meagre ten-minute breaks."..."

um.. it's there in the linked article, and you even included it in your refutation..

Do you fall asleep on your ten minute breaks?

What I got from the article was the fact that a few 10 minute breaks for such a long shift (for shit-pay) is not enough.. they are so exhausted that they use their 10 minutes to try to sleep..even for a few minutes..

Most people would use a 10 minute break for a little walk-around, maybe a snack, some conversation...you know..normal things:)

[Major Hogwash]

33. 15 hour shifts - and you think a 10 minute break is too much?

I hope you can live with that concept.

[REP]

34. Obviously, she's an Apple shill

Did I guess right?

[lame54]

20. I hope they docked their pay

[Fumesucker]

22. Some people say a man is made outta mud

A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion
Cain't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you
Then the left one will

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpTJg2EBpw

[Rex]

25. Microsoft is an evil company, they would love to have all their

workers be slaves that got paid nothing and worked all day and night.

[fascisthunter]

26. isn't it grand taking advantage of the less priviledged?

and the wealthy fear us all... no wonder why.

[POAS]

28. "China Blue" is a good documantary about

conditions like this at a denim factory in China.

Information on the film is available at "teddy bear films" and at ITVS.org. A video preview is at the ITVS link.

[deaniac21]

29. Actually, I think Microsoft gives the employees 15 minute naps on the hour.

[snagglepuss]

32. k & r. nt

[Romulox]

35. By acquiescing to this treatment of "those people", we are condemning our grandchildren to this .

same thing.